CONNECTING WITH SCOTLAND'S SOUNDS
Scots songs are being sung in classrooms in Dundee, Angus and Fife as part of a project to connect today’s young people with traditions of the past.
It is part of a national initiative called Scotland’s Sounds, led by the National Library of Scotland, which aims to preserve and share the country’s rich audio heritage.
The primary school project is using archive recordings of local traditional songs to inspire young people to discover more of what life used to be like in the places they now live.
Each 'Finding Our Voices: Exploring Local Songs' workshop series will conclude with a public performance in each school. The first schools to take part in the programme are Dundee’s Craigiebarns and Forthill primary schools. The workshops will introduce today’s smart phone generation to older sound equipment such as reel-to-reel tape recorders.
Amy McDonald, Engagement and Learning Co-ordinator for Connecting Scotland’s Sounds, said: “This is an exciting project to introduce the sounds of the past to the adults of the future. We hope it will enable pupils and teachers to learn about and enjoy their local and national audio heritage, particularly with regards to Scots song.”
These workshops have made possible through the Connecting Scotland’s Sounds programme, which is funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation to champion Scotland’s audio heritage. It works to help give people looking after sound recordings the skills to care for these, and to help share Scotland’s heritage sound recordings with audiences across the nation.
The workshops will be run by Local Voices, an organisation set up to help communities across Scotland identify, collect and engage with their local heritage.
Director Chris Wright said: “We will explore themes that local songs might cover – trades, local landmarks, place names and local characters. Songs are then explored, listened to and discussed, with the accompanying visual resources of maps, broadsheet images, local landmarks, before eventually being learned as a group.”
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The Scotland’s Sounds network includes a range of museums, libraries, archives and private collections which want to work collaboratively to care for and provide access to Scotland’s heritage recorded sounds.
The strategic vision for the Scotland’s Sounds network states: ‘Through increasing visibility to sound collections we can help in raising standards and sharing best practice to encourage effective care and promote widespread accessibility while fostering a supportive public and professional network.’
More information on Scotland’s Sounds can be found at http://www.nls.uk/about-us/working-with-others/scotlands-sounds